For his sophomore campaign Jaylen continued to hone his skills at Mater Dei but transferred to Balboa Prep for his junior year.

Balboa is not a CIF member so Hands game schedule expanded both in length and geographically but largely played in the shadows of the other CIF teams and players because the local media usually only covers CIF high school teams.

This is the first year there were two McDonald’s All-American boys from San Diego, Cathedral’s Brandon McCoy ’17 and Jaylen Hands ’17. But ironically neither burger boy was named the San Diego player of the year.